(rounds)
(minutes)
Talas says nothing at all. He hunches, too busy dry-heaving to try and speak.
Thedra downed some kind of alchemical drought and slowly took a few deep breaths. Whatever it was seemed to counter her sickness. "I got two more." she was about to hand one to Spectrum, but stopped. "No offense, partner, but you're about useless if you can't cast spells."
She scanned the recruits and passed one to Teral. "Help Dolgren."
"Nobody get near the water. If we are where I think we are, that's the worst river anywhere."
"Who gets the last one?" she said holding up the little vial.
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Two figures moved quickly through the crowd and approached the Pit. As they passed and people noticed them, the crowd thinned and dispersed. People suddenly had anywhere else to be. Even the vendors and street performers started moving their kiosks and clearing the streets.
The two could not be more different. One wore white with the city's heraldry large and proud across his chest. His face was covered by a helm with a mirrored faceplate. How he saw out of it was anyone's guess. When he moved, he sounded like a pile of chains being dragged down the street.
The other was dressed in faded and tattered blacks and grays. He was quiet as a ghost. Beneath his tunic his whole body was covered in bandages, some soaked through. His face was partially covered by half-mask that ran diagonally from above one elven ear to below the other. What little skin was exposed was covered in scars. One eye was damaged, a milky white iris with a corona of bloody red. The other was a crystalline blue.
They nodded a greeting to Addryn, but he was busy with his tablet so they watched as the Jurors finished maneuvering the crane into place and hooking it up to the heavy iron plate.
When it was done, they each pulled a large key out from beneath their armor. "We need the third." one of the jurers said, looking up at Addryn from where they stood on the metal plate inside the pit.
A shadow passed overhead. Addryn looked up and watched an angel start to descend.
"She's here."
A corpse bumped up against the island at the very edge of your vision, pushed by the strong current of the rushing river. It twitched and raised it's eyeless head, a claw grabbing onto one of the claw-like obsidian formations. It is now sniffing like an animal and trying to drag itself out of the water.
"I'll...I'll take it Thedra." Ariela says forcing herself to stand upright.
Thedra tossed Ariela the little vial. The liquid burned her throat, but quickly settled the stomach and filled the nose with an overpowering scent of horseradish.
Letting out a rush of breath to alleviate the burning sensation, Ariela sighs with relief and she feels her faculties back under control.
"Wow. That was effective." she says cracking her neck and stretching. The mention of a terrible river did nothing to jog her idea of where they might be however.
"I SAID there's a... zombie?"
Eythil watched the interaction between the group with momentary hesitation. The thought of ingesting anything didn't sit well with him, until he saw that whatever was being passed out seemed to have cured the dizzying illness they all seemed to be feeling.
Seems this group hands out helpful things. I should have taken one.
he thought to himself.
When the Dwarf's loud voice began booming out again, Eythil pulled out his dagger, intending to cut the creatures on his chest out. But he noticed the Dwarf's confusion and followed his gaze but he could only see darkness.
Hands trembling, fighting down the urge to retch, Teral choked down the potion over a couple of feeble attempts.
Gagging, he struggled for a moment and then fell to his knees, vomiting most of the concoction back onto the awful ground.
"Dammit, Teral!" Thedra snapped.
Spectrum held up a hand, silencing them both.
"Dolgrin, what do you see?" the elf said quietly.
Ariela turns in the direction indicated by Dolgren, slipping into a fighting stance.
"Zombies?! Where are they, Dolgren? We cannot see them."
"I'll tell ya if you get this thing outta my chest!"
Teral glared back up at Thedra between mostly heaves. "Not exactly...hrg...doing this on...purpose over here! 'Stone, I hate this part."
Eythil stopped listening to the conversation he could not understand and started focusing more on what they're faces were saying. Seeing the Dwarf was still clearly distressed about the things inside his chest and stomach.
At least he's wearing armor that I'm used to and is easily moved.
Without waiting for a response, he grabbed onto the bottom of Dolgrin's armor and lifted up to reveal his writhing skin beneath where he traced the dagger with slightly shaky hands. Then he proceeded to cut in.
A small writhing worm with a white, thorny head was briefly revealed and sliced by Eythil's blade, but the thing dug deeper into Dolgren's body and out of sight. From what Eythil could tell, it seemed only partially corporeal.
Dolgren gritted his teeth against the pain of the dagger. He felt the thing move as well. It was strangely painless, more a feeling of strange worming pressure than anything else. He was pretty sure there was more than one of them.
In the darkness, barely heard over the rushing water, something moaned.
The angel turned her key unlocking the last of the locks on the Pit. "I consent." she spoke quietly to the rune in the center of the plate. It favored from it's calm, pale blue over to an alarming red.
The chains that had held the locks were quickly attached to the crane's hook and the whole thing began to move. The two Jurors and the angel rode the plate upward until it was level with the ground and stepped free, immediately taking up defensive positions around the leech-maw rim.
The swirling gorge beneath the plate was alive with anger and hissing spite. It spoke to them in the tongue of demons.
"THROUGH ME YOU GO AMONGST THE LOST."
"I've heard it before." the angel snapped. "Send your herald."
The Pit gnashed. "PERHAPS SEND THEM ALL, I SHALL."
"Go ahead. The Accords haven't been tested for a while. How many rings do you think you'll lose this time?" the angel snapped.
"INFINITE ARE THE LAYERS. INFINITE ARE THE LEIGION."
"Finite is my patience. Send your herald or make your play."
From the Pit slowly rose a towering boar-like figure, corpulent, with stubby three fingered hands at the end of thick, simian arms. On it's back were a pair of vulture's wings each with a pair of delicate finger-claws at the bend of the wing. It carried a tome in one hand and wore rich fabrics in a sarong around it's heavy waist.
"I answer." the creature said in an oily tenor. "You may ask."
"I ask nothing." the angel glared. "I demand."
Behind her, Addryn tapped away on his tablet, a small smile growing on his face.
Other moans answered. All around them. Faint splashes and gurgles accompanied the skin-shivering sounds.
"We are very nearly out of time..." Spectrum said, his ashen face sweating with the effort of staying upright.
"Can someone please tell me where exactly we are? What is this horrible place? And what is that making those sounds?" Garridan was normally calm, even in the face of danger; however, his companion Talas could hear the fear in Garridan's voice. "Perhaps we should move somewhere more defensible?"
"There is nowhere else. Nowhere to go. I think..." Spectrum cleared his throat, clearly struggling. His mind was afire and the emotional pressure of this place was more than the elf could bear. He remained standing, but he swayed blood was flowing freely from his ears. His stoic mask held, but tears ran down his face.
"That... is the River Styx."
"We are at the bottom of-" he coughed. "-the very bottom... of the Abyss."
The soft clang of metal was heard as the chakram tumbled out of Garridan's hands to the ground. "The Abyss??? Why are we in the Abyss?" Everything about this was wrong; ambushed by fire-wielding orcs, nearly crushed by a rampaging evil lizard, Dolgren had some terrible worm-thing crawling around inside his chest, and now they were in the Abyss... Garridan's knees buckled a little as he bent down to retrieve his fallen weapons. "What do we do, Thedra?"
Thedra squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "I was really hoping you wouldn't say that..." she said to her partner.
"I've never been here. I only barely skimmed this place. Primes are my specialty, not Spiritual Planes. If I remember right, we have two things going for us. One, not even demons can cross this river. Unless they can fly, i guess. Two, we're not supposed to be here. The Accords keep us from being claimed, and we weren't here by judgement."
Thedra pulled out her gem-studded stone and pressed an onyx button. "We stay put, and hope the folks back home are working on a way to get us out of here."
While she talked Eythil kept working. He dug a little more with his blade and managed to snag a thorn-like head. With quick hands he managed to grab the smoking worm and drag from Dolgrin's chest. It started to stab into his hand, but he quickly tossed it to the side before it could burrow into him as well.
It wriggled into the water at the edge of the light.
All around them, faint eyeshine could be seen amid the water and the wreckage. More moans answered.
Ariela's eyes widen at the mention of being in the Abyss....no being at the BOTTOM OF THE ABYSS. Shaking her head she shifts her stance, an eerie violet-grey glow enveloping her hands as she stands facing the water, ready to strike anything that approaches.
Talas's head was a gray mush, his insides were churning in a constant rebellion, and the fatigue from the wolf-acquisition still had hold of him. He blearily squinted around through his watering eyes and bullied himself from a half crouch to fully upright-- mostly out of some comprehension that if what was being said was true, then dying here meant very bad things. Like one's soul becoming a demon plaything.
He didn't speak, just clutched his blade with a trembling grip while sweat liberally soaked his clothes.
Teral shook his head and wiped his mouth, shakily getting to his feet.
"I bloody knew it. I knew it," he snarled, suddenly furious. "And I should have been able to do something about it, damn it! Damn it all to...well, *@$*, to here! If this was a year ago..." He hung his head, his sudden rage turned to regret just as quickly.
From the pouch at his belt, two beady eyes stared up at him with malicious glee.
"This is highly irregular." the disgusting demon squealed and grunted, scanning the tome in it's hands. "These mortals were not compelled or stolen. They simply... slipped. The Abyss holds claim over things lost to it's depths."
"If they were lost, we wouldn't be telling you exactly where they are." the angel glared.
"That still does not explain why the Abyss should consent to their return. The Abyss finds little difference between were and are." the demon retorted.
"Because if the Abyss wants to keep them, the Abyss is going to have to fight to hold them." the angel said resting her hands on the hilts of her swords.
The demon nervously cleared it's throat. The woman before it, the angel, the Hellguard, she wore armor made from defeated demon lords. Those blades were among the more famous weapons in the infernal realms.
"That would break your revered Accords." the demon said, trying desperately to steer the conversation away from a future where he was the next notch in her hilt.
"No. It would not. Those are Arch citizens. They have broken no laws or treaties. They were carrying out a Council endorsed mission and an unforeseen planar event pushed them into the Abyss. It is the Abyss' contractual duty to return our people and property. If you refuse we are within our rights to bring them back by force." the angel gestured to her left and right. "I am sure you recognize Link."
"The Traitor." the demon grunted, staring at his own reflection in the mirrored faceplate of the knight next to the angel.
"And Azrael." the angel continued.
"The Cage." the demon sneered at the scarred, bandaged man on the other side.
"We are the vanguard." the angel said. "And in ten seconds we are going to exorcise our right to retrieve our property. Wherever the Pit Gate leads, we will start there and carve a straight line to our people. Anyone or anything in our way will be forfeit. So, I suggest you ensure that our line is as short as possible."
The demon paused only a moment, it's piggy eyes narrowing and grudgingly caving to the threat. "You have their location?"
"Addryn?" the angel asked.
"I have them." the man in blue said without looking up from his glass tablet.
All around the shambling, wet sounds of animate corpses clawing themselves up onto the jagged obsidian shores could be heard. Eyeshine winked in the darkness and the group of Recruits felt the dread as the horde of lost souls drew closer.
Slowly from the water rose something unspeakable. It reflected faintly from the circle of dim, ruddy light the recruits stood in. It's black, ropy body tangled in on itself, bunching outward and expanding, still growing as it pulled free of the River Styx. A mismatched scattering of glowing red eyes staring from inside a bloom of writhing tentacles. Each one was capped by a white, thorn-like head. It opened with a gurgling roar, revealing a round lamprey-mouth flanked by a double set of spider-like mandibles.
"Dolgren." it hissed and gargled. "I am your sins remembered."
Thedra reached into a pouch and palmed a handful of explosive tiles. She didn't have enough. Not nearly enough. She was going to go down fighting though. Spectrum still had that ridiculous pistol of his, and no matter what monstrosity came out of it, it's not like things could get much worse.
These kids deserved better than she had given them.
She looked down at the keystone on her belt. Where the hell is the cavalry?
As if on cue, a glowing ring opened in the darkness, just off the shore of the little island, right at the surface of the water.
Out of it burst a white-winged woman in strange red and black armor, covered in horns and fangs. In here hands were two swords, one blacked with a corona of white, like a solar eclipse, the other crackling and dripping, cycling through elemental energies like a deadly rainbow.
She flapped once and hovered, scanning as two more figures shot from the glowing portal like they'd been fired from a cannon. They landed angrily on the obsidian shore. One wore a white, hooded monk's robe over heavy armor. His face was covered by a mirrored faceplate. Savage chains that writhed like serpents came from the sleeves of his robe. He landed like a hammer, sending chips of obsidian exploding outward. The other wore tattered black and bandages. He landed like an acrobat, a corona of translucent demonic faces and clawed arms rising around his body.
"Move!" the angel barked.
Thedra smiled.
Eythil stopped his nearly fruitless efforts on Dolgrin as he saw everything happening.
He gets to deal with it now.
He looked at the darkness and the field of obstacles before them and made his choice on the easiest path he could see, except he couldn't see the black area in the middle. Annoyed, he cast a simple light spell on his dagger and began to move forward.
Eythil did not expect the island they were on to be partly pockmarked with little holes in the ground where the darkness was, but thankfully the light from his spell let him see them coming. Thankfully he was used to moving through the woods on uneven ground as this posed little problem for him. The problems began when the edge of the island began sloping downward.
Keep moving. Foot slips, shift weight to other side, just like she...
Due to his light spell, he quickly became a prime target for the zombies. They began converging on his location. He was forced to adjust his course, taking a slightly longer route that angled diagonally away from the portal. Because of his armor hampering his speed and movement he slipped, tumbling down the thirty foot slope. Losing the dagger in the process. Although he was able to stop himself near the bottom, he found himself face to face with several zombies.
Too many! No. Get up. I can't die here. I'm a survivor!
They all began clawing at him. He was thankful for the armor then and the amulet he'd taken as several claws failed to find their mark, but one did. Ignoring the dagger, he rolled to his feet, taking several more glancing blows but one more solid one as he moved for the portal.
Almost there...
The wounds he'd recieved as well as the blows landed by the zombies were adding up. One more zombie took a swipe at him as he barreled past it, thankfully it glanced off his armor. But the move cost him his momentum, as he finally leaped at the portal, he fell short by about 6 feet, splashing into the water.
Normally Eythil would have been a strong swimmer, but between fatigue, planar sickness, the weight of his armor, and the cold cloying feeling of the water he was in, he began to flail, and sink...
No... not now... I was so close to... what was I doing exactly?
The Cavalry had arrived and it was time to make a run for it. Grabbing hold of the fabric on her upper arms, Ariela tugged them down and then back up, her clothing morphing into a form fitting black outfit, free of any loose or flowing elements for the undead horde to grab hold of. 'This is it girl, you thought the stump run at the temple was something? or the coals? you're about to make the run of your life. Your last if you @#$% it up.'
She calmed her breathing, the way she'd been taught. Years of training and study, all to be put to the test in a single moment.
As the fire-plane native took off weilding a dagger emanating light, Ariela chose the moment to act, her decision partially motivated by taking advantage of the distraction he posed, and partially to provide one of her own, to allow the others to get Dolgren through, as the most injured of them.
As the undead moved to swarm the charging Eythil, she focused, feeling the arcane power flowing through her body, humming in her hands and feet. With another minor exertion of will she drew upon a fragment of fell power, the wan glow pulsing quietly as she took one last steadying breath and began to run.
She followed his light, charging at the backs of the undead that sought to swarm the one bearing light in thier midst, staying close, her feet leaping from point to point along the slippery rock. Tests of balance and agility flashed back through her mind as her body constantly adjusted, shifting her weight as her foot slipped, jumping over an outcropping of the dark rock, grabbing hold of another to halt her skid and cursing under her breath as its sharpness cut her finger.
She lost sight of him for a moment as her veered away from the straight line to the portal, pitching down the embankment towards the darkness, and the water that meant certain death. '$#!+'
The whole damn point to them even being in this mess was going to that damned fire plane hell hole to get him, and she'd be damned if she died here for something that turned out to be pointless. Though they were swarming the man, she'd manage d to get the attention of quite a few now. Especially the ones that could smell her blood. reaching into a pouch on her belt she pulled out her ioun torch, tossing into the air and striking out at an approaching zombie with a kick as the stone began to orbit her head, giving her a bit of light.
She continued running even as she was aware of the others behind her beginning to move, jumping, leaping, striking, using the momentum of every undead creature she struck to keep her balance and shift around unpredictably, making herself harder to catch.
"GET UP! GET THE HELLS UP!" she yelled racing towards the thick of the tangle. He might not understand the words but surrounded by enemies any voice was a lifeline.
The violent planar transition had been particularly damaging to Ylmen's finely tuned senses. His internal compass was spinning like a top, and the atmosphere here felt more like bloody steam than air.
Upon landing hard on the cracked and glassy ground he had reflexively exploded into flight, but one gasp of foul miasma and a glance upward at the myriad of maddening images above send him collapsing, limp and stunned, back to the ground.
The air didn't work right. Light didn't work right. He couldn't tell how far away anything was. Sound didn't so much permeate through the air in waves as it did burrow through it like a worm.
Ylmen blinked, and blinked again. He shook his head, and flecks of dust and chips of stone scattered from the thick feathers around his neck.
Wink emerged from the feathers, sneezing and gasping, only to shoot back into cover with a squeak upon seeing where they'd landed.
The appearance of a portal and figures Thedra had recognized as allies send Ylmen bursting into action. A quick glance side to side to count up distances, and he jumped out toward horde of styx zombies. Once near the horde and 15 feet above them, he erupted in a flash of electricity.
After the flash of light, Ylmen began to slowly drift to the side, hoping to draw the horde away from the path needed by the rest of his party.
The exhaustion sucked at Talas like a strong riptide. The voices in the pit around him whispered, there is no chance. There is no hope. Just give up now. Just close your eyes, lie down, you'll have one brief moment of peace when you surrender... you can stop trying... you'll be ours, but you can stop trying...
The leather-wrapped grip of his blade was dark with the sweat that'd poured from him. Talas stared at his fingers, white-knuckled, clutching the leather, using the long blade as a cane.
His road didn't end here.
He didn't know where it went, but surely this was not where it ended, here at the bottom of all the worlds... Talas let out a shuddering breath and lurched forward. Eythil's light blazed sickly and bright in the stifling gloom-- enough to illustrate the blasted landscape around them, the hordes of the dead. Talas staggered that way.
The obsidian underfoot was like walking on glass. Talas stretched out his arms (they felt so heavy--) for balance. Shards of glass sliced through his boots, stung the soles of his feet... the pain was just another note among the misery.
A splash, cutting through the other noises. The light faltered. Talas moaned-- it just didn't end-- but moved sluggishly after Ariela. His blade swept out the legs of two of the slow-moving dead things. They were too many, far too many-- all he could do was try and cut a path for Eythil to move along.
And hope they didn't swarm him.
He stared at the last gap, that distance ahead. He could jump it... under normal circumstances, he was fairly sure. If he wasn't so full of fatigue, if his mind wasn't reeling from the sensory and planar shocks.
The blade rose, and fell, long elven workmanship winking in the pulsing portal light.
Dolgrin stood up, dizzy from the planar effects and the incomplete, open chest surgery without sleep magic.
Most of the others were already running, drawing the attention of the zombies. The darkness wasn't a problem, the obsidian wasn't even that much of a problem. The problem was that he would have to jump 2.17 Dolgrins in order to get into that portal.
Dolgrin wouldn't have blamed anyone for lying down and giving up after all he'd been through, but Dolgrin was a fighter. A warrior from birth, Dolgrin doesn't quit, ever. So he sheathed his waraxe, picked up his shield, and ran forwards screaming bloody murder. The darkness was no issue for Dwarf eyes, and the slick obsidian was nothing to trip his feet. The zombies were slow, distracted. Dolgrin raised his shield and plowed through them, their mangled bodies brushed his shield before being flung to the side. Down to the water he ran, but instead of jumping he lowered his shield to water level. With a forward leap, he surfs along the river Styx, then leaps off, arms outstretched, into the glowing portal.
As the recruits dashed madly toward the portal, dodging zombie claws and pillars of sharp obsidian, their rescuers got to work.
The man in white with the mirrored faceplate was the calm center of a storm of chains that erupted from his sleeves and tore through swaths of the zombie horde. His partner was not nearly so composed. He was a blur of scything claws and fangs that pushed out from his translucent penumbra like it was trying to escape from him.
Above them in the sky, the angel clashed with the horrible creature that had come for Dolgrin. Her two blades sent black ichor splashing down to the island below. She was a beautiful flow of violence, but the creature she faced was not interested in her. It flowed like liquid through he air, avoiding her altogether in it's need to reach it's quarry.
As Dolgrin ran, throwing his shield out to surf across the waters of the river styx, long ropy tendrils reached out for him, grabbed him just as he made his leap, and hauled him into the air.
"You are mine, little sinner." the gurgling voice of his personal demon snarled at him.
Then he was falling, the tentacles severed by the angel's blades. It shrieked, more tentacles lashing out for the dwarf, but it was too late. He was through the portal and gone.
Eythil, splashing desperately in the water, grabbed the floating shield and instinctively used it to keep himself afloat. He looked around frightened and confused.
Thedra tossed a rope to Ylmen. "Get him!"
Garridan staggered after the glowing light as quickly as he could, keeping pace with his friend Talas... Luckily he was very light on his feet and beyond the sharp obsidian slicing away at the soles of his thick, leather boots he made it through without too much of a stumble. He skidded to a halt upon witnesses the mass of zombies... He immediately began slinging his chakram to help create an opening for his companions; unfortunately, his weapons were limited and soon he found himself empty of the cold iron discs.
He rushed behind his friends as quickly as his tired feet would take him, luckily he was naturally nimble and agile. He made it around the mass without much more than bruises and a bleeding mouth. He coughed and spit out blood as he aspirated on it through his ragged breathing. 'How wide is that river?' He pumped his legs harder than he ever had before and leaped, but noticed as he was coming down that he was not going to clear the river completely...
His boots splashed into the swallow water at the edge of the shoreline, he tucked himself into a haphazard tumble, the wind knocked from his lungs upon the brutal impact. He lay there for a moment, coughing and mind spinning. Thedra's shouting cut through the haze of gasping for breath. With a groan he got to his feet and stumbled over to assist in retrieving Eythil. 'Erastil... please do not let this be the end of me.'
Grabbing the vial on her belt, Ariela downed it in one gulp, hurling the empty vial at a zombie in a feint as she sidestepped and droves a palm into the face of another. She continued her assault, pushing forward, pummeling mercilessly, weathering the scratches and blows, shrugging off the attempts to grab her even as her body began to gain mass, her height doubling rapidly as the potion took effect.
A wild grin creeps across her face in the midst of the chaos as she watches Dolgrin navigate the waves of undead with his usual band of insane bravado.
The stone orbiting her head stood out like a beacon to the others, feet above the sea of enemies as she stands out in the darkness, her head and shoulders haloed by the glowing portal, fighting for all she is worth. Seeing Ylmen going for the fallen Eythil, she reached out grabbing hold of the barely conscious Garridan, hoisting him above her head to practically throw him into the portal.
"C'MON!!" she yells to the others fighting their way forward as a brilliant flash of lightning blazes in the midsts of the stygian horde.
Talas looks around wildly in the chaotic landscape, hunting one face in the madness- Garridan. He sees his friend there and a weary smile manages to manifest itself.
"Let's get going," he shouts over the sound of battle. "This isn't my idea of a place to retire..."
He slices down a zombie in their path, his blade sweeping the sluggish thing's head off, then charges towards that circle of light. The journey doesn't end here.
Behind the rest, Teral gasped his way on to shore, kicking off something dark and rotting clinging to his foot back into the water as his hedgehog made a noise of protest and rage. He tossed a glowing rock ahead of him and limped wetly toward the group, his legs a mass of cuts from his slide down the sharp glassy slope. "Forgotten Gods I hate it here."
Eythil was like a rag doll, staring in empty confusion. Ylmen tried to get a rope to him, but it was like Eythil didn't know what it was. It was the enlarged Ariela that saved his life.
She grabbed him by his collar and hauled him out of the water, heaving him though the portal.
The water from the river splattered her clothes and squished out of his clothes onto her hand, leeching the color from both and burning with a kind of cold that made her muscles cramp and throb. Unbidden feelings of loss, despair, hopelessness and apathy rose up. The water was like acid to her memories and drive. There were things about her that were gone now. She didn't know what they had been, but she could feel their absence. It hurt like a broken heart.
She realized she was just standing there now as people climbed up her back and jumped off her shoulders one after another.
What were their names again? Teras? That wasn't right.
Above her an angel chased a gurgling demon. It frothed it's anger at it's lost prey and dove down into the water of the powerful river. A shattered galleon full of bleach-white dead soldiers drifted by, ineffectually lobbing javelins that didn't reach the shore. Chains and translucent claws scythed through the moaning horde. A woman slapped her on the leg.
"Pull it together! We're the last ones and I'm not leaving you standing here!" she pointed to the glowing ring. "Jump!"
Action she knew, and she moved.
Getting into the Pit was easy. Getting out was not. The Abyss did not like to give up anything.
Addryn made some adjustments and cast a spell. "Should be any second now. When they come through, grab them."
One by one the recruits fell upward out of the pit, caught by Addryn's gravity-reversing spell and thumping hard to the under side of the massive metal plate that usually covered the Abyssal door.
They were in planar shock, convulsing and wracked. The Jurers and the Guards reached out to haul them to the edge and bring them to the ground. The sudden reversal of gravity was just one last thing in a long string of abuse their bodies had suffered in the last few hours
It was all too much. They were fighters, every one of them, but the relief of being safe was enough for their minds to finally give into the fatigue and shock they'd been fighting for far too long.
One by one, on the street of the city they'd already given up their lives for, they passed out.
The angel was the last one though the gate. "Close it. Get them to the temple."
The crane released the metal plate with a crash. The glow from beneath it died down. Locks and chains were set. The rune glowed blue again. Stretchers were brought. Kiosks came back. Foot traffic began again. Street performers started up their routines again. Within minutes, it would have been impossible to tell that anything strange had happened at all.
The Warlord stood head and shoulders above even the largest member of his horde. Many said he had the blood of giants in his veins. He looked at the strange circle on the ground. It had been ash-covered earth half a day ago. Now it was strange, tightly cut stones with an engraved symbol cut into it. All around them was the taint of demons. He held up his own sword, taken from a powerful foe from the outer realms.
The same symbol. He'd long thought that the source of the corruption int his forest came from a power that was not of the natural world. Now he knew.
This was their gateway. All he had to do was figure out how to open it. Then he could spread his righter flame right to their heart.
With a wave of his hand the Warlord called the spirit of the dead shaman who lay before him. The translucent soul rose and bowed.
"Tell me everything." he rumbled.
The light that filtered in through the pain slowly swirled with gentle color.
One by one they came awake in various stages of discomfort, shock and panic. One by one they calmed and realized they were safe.
They were arranged in a ring, their heads all facing inward looking up at a ceiling of glass. It took them a few moments to realize what they were looking at.
People. There were floors above them. The walls and floors were crystal clear save for the etchings that caught the multi-colored light. People were moving about above them, going about their business. Most were human. Some were definitely not. A reptilian looking fellow on the floor right above smiled and waved.
The swirling colors were being cast by some kind of giant crystal that hung a few floors above like a chandelier. It was stained glass, but one that slowly changed like watercolors spreading around inside it.
A man sat in the center of the ring that they formed. He glowed too, but only with two colors. It was as though he were made of glass, like a human-shaped lantern with a light where his heart should have been, and inside him was a dark liquid swirling across the inner surface of his glass-like skin which tainted the color of his personal glow from gold to a dark purple. He wore priest robes in black accented with white and a silver emblem on the lapel that looked like the city's sigil on a chalice with a pair of crossed scythes behind it.
Somehow, the strange kaleidoscope of light and color was soothing rather than disorienting.
"Is everyone alright? Speak if you can."
You have no memory of anything. Right now you can't even remember a language. You will need to completely remake your character. Right now you are a 2 Hit Dice character with no class. The Academy will be your Retraining.
You gain the following Drawback and Trait-
Drowned In The Styx: You are an amnesiac. You have a -2 penalty against any spell or effect that affects memory.
Dead Inside: You gain a permeant Invisibility to Undead effect, with a DC equal to 10+ 1/2 your character level + your Charisma bonus.
The water of the Styx is corrosive to a person's sense of self. You have literally been through hell, and some of you didn't come back.
You have taken 4 points of Charisma Drain. This is a Curse effect. You will need the curse to be lifted before the Drain can be cured.
In addition, you gain the following Drawback and Trait-
Styx Tainted: You take a -1 penalty against any spell or effect that affects memory.
Numb Inside: You gain a +2 bonus against any spell or effect with the Emotion descriptor.
You feel like the hell you just left. You have abyss-born parasites inside you that are turning your body and soul into swiss cheese.
From your trials, you gain the following drawback and trait-
Quippoth Corruption: Spells and effects treat you as though you were Evil. You do not have an Aura of Evil, and you do not detect as evil to Detect Alignment, but effects like Smite Evil, Protection From Evil and Holy Word effect you as though you were. This is a Curse effect and can be removed by appropriate magic.
Alive Again: You gain a +2 bonus vs. Death effects. In addition, you are considered to be wearing a Neck Guard from the thick, ropy scar around your neck.
You endured three of the worst kinds of planar travel possible, all within minutes of each other. You feel like you've been pulled apart and put back together a little bit wrong.
Your half-elf nature is nothing if not adaptable though, so you gain the following drawback and trait-
Planar Sickness: Whenever you travel between planes, you must make a Fortitude save of be Sickened for 1d4 minutes. The DC is equal to 15+ the level of the spell used for planar travel.
Planar Sensitivity: You can feel incoming planar disruptions, and feel the lingering spacial distortion of planar effects that have passed. Within a range of 10 feet per character level, you can tell when someone uses any kind of planar travel, and the location they leave or arrive, even if you cannot see them. You can feel lingering planar effects for 1 hour per level of the effect after they have occurred. You are considered to be witnessing the effect (even after it has passed) for the purposes of identifying it with Spellcraft or Knowledge Arcana.
Talas groaned softly, only half-aware he was making noises at all. His eyes were half-open, gazing without focus on the play of light and color. Nice. Pretty. It reminded him of childhood in the caravan, lying on the little bed in his mother's wagon, cramped even for a child, with the little trinkets of colored glass hanging in the open window, swaying in the breeze and with the wagon's motion. Not that he'd gotten to lie still and ride like that, often. You had to walk, in the caravan, most of the time... no need to tire out the animals with extra weight in the wagons, if your feet worked... but sometimes, sometimes as a small child he had been sick, and then, fevered, allowed to lie in the wagons and doze while everyone else had moved on...
Someone asked if he was alright. His mother...?
No. She was dead. Talas squeezed his eyes shut then tried to open them more fully, staring around him at the surreal view.
"Ah... ah, define alright, please..." he managed, gazing at the speaker with a blank look. Was that even a-- person?
"All Things considered," Teral said distractedly, getting back to his feet, "That could have gone much worse at the end there."
His face turned dark as he looked around at the chamber, the attendant, and his disoriented teammates. "Not to be too on the nose, but what the Hells happened out there?!"
Opening her eyes, Ariela took in the bizarre scene around her, her mind analytically cataloging her surroundings.
'We survived. Good.'
Something inside told her that should mean.....more to her but there was simple a vague sense of relief. Something was...off. She couldn't really place it and honestly, it probably didn't matter.
Her body ached,remnants of the battering and injuries she'd taken, despite apparently having been healed. She also felt.....empty.....probably nothing of consequence.
"We're alive. Which is better than expected I suppose." Ariela says in a flat almost emotionless monotone.